The S88 is an 88 note fully weighted hammer-action Fatar keybed with aftertouch. The S-series controllers feature real time control knobs to adjust parameters as well as browse and load from your Komplete Kontrol library.

For advanced keyboardists and pianists that are used to a real grand piano, the combination of our California Keys Grand Piano and the S88 is the closest I’ve gotten to the emotional “state of consciousness” I feel when I’m playing my real grand.

While recording the amazing Fazioli 10 foot grand, our vision was to offer it so it would serve a large variety of playing styles and genres. We mic’d the piano close up, under the piano, a classical ORTF configuration and two matched pairs of Earthworks mics behind and in front of the player 12 feet away. These room mics can be output through your surround matrix with the U87 through the sub. Close mics in front and viola! You’ve got a beautiful surround piano. The cool part is this; all of these mics are completely controllable from the front panel of the NI S88. You can control the volume of each mic, panning, reverb, ADSR, tone, sympathetic string level, note off and pedal sounds.

The range of tone and playability is truly amazing. I’ve never been able to play this softly on a digital piano. We recorded the quietest layers of the piano including the "bonus pedal". This is a fourth pedal which raises the hammers up to within 1 inch of the strings for the quietest playing imaginable. This is the first sampled piano I've been able to play this quiet on.

We then added a velocity curve slider to adjust the sensitivity allowing you to access these layers easily according to your playing style.

The N.I. S88 is hands down the best controller I’ve ever played. In addition to using the parameters we’ve set up, you can also assign the knobs to whatever paramenter you wish when using any instrument in Komplete Kontrol and save your own settings via snapshots.

If you’re a live player, you can finally stash the laptop and control instruments directly from the front panel.